


a hundred miles

by derekmaliknurse



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, M/M, Mutual Pining, Woke Up Married, binding spells, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 20:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18763207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derekmaliknurse/pseuds/derekmaliknurse
Summary: Quentin might still be in love with Eliot. He’s trying to figure it out. Featuring: a drunk marriage in Vegas, binding spells, Margo Hanson’s superb advice that absolutely no one has taken, Alice’s container of Quentin’s blood, Julia as the new Ember and Umber, a wedding to prepare for in Fillory, and two people so in love it’s a little sickening. (Margo’s words.)





	a hundred miles

**Author's Note:**

> so. i don’t need to talk about the finale, and i don’t need to talk about how crushed it left me. what i want to talk about is how i was a little stuck between the anger and sadness stage of grief, and writing this kind of filled the hole inside my heart. i hope if you decide to read this, it does the same for you. i don’t know if it’s good, exactly, but it made me remember that i loved this show and love these characters, and nothing can take that from me, not even the bullshit finale. title from hundred miles by yall and gabriela richardson & epigraphs respectively from light me up and still the one by ingrid michaelson.

_well you’re not what i was looking for_

_but your arms were open at my door_

_and you taught me what a life is for_

_to see, that ordinary, isn’t_

────────────────────

“Wake up,” says Alice, in a poofy gown. Or no, it’s not Alice anymore. It’s Eliot now? In a tux?

“Wake up!” says Eliot. “Q, wake up, seriously. Q.”

 _Wake up_ , thinks Quentin irritably and tries to remember why that’s important. He’s so warm and comfortable, someone’s legs tangled with his, someone’s arm thrown across his chest, someone’s head on his shoulder.

“Wake up!” Eliot repeats. And Quentin does, to sunlight streaming in through wide-open curtains and Eliot – real Eliot, not dream-Eliot – on his left side and Margo asleep on his right.

Quentin’s first thought is to lean up to Eliot for a morning kiss. And then he remembers that this is. Not the mosiac and he and Eliot don’t – do that. His second thought is to tell Eliot about his dream, because he would always tell Eliot about his dreams – before, whether they were nightmares or really weird dreams that would make Eliot laugh. This most recent dream falls into the latter, since Quentin had been twirling Alice/Eliot around in a ballroom wearing a suit before he woke up. Not that it matters, because, obviously, he and Eliot aren’t. Don’t. Whatever. His third thought is that his head is pounding like a motherfucker. His fourth thought is, _oh my God did I sleep with Margo and Eliot again._ That would be awkward and embarrassing, but the important part is that he isn’t with Alice or anyone, because that’s a level of awfulness Quentin doesn’t want to touch again.

He’s in an unfamiliar hotel room and an unfamiliar, but comfortable, bed, white sheets all tangled around the three of them. But Quentin’s wearing clothes. Thank God.

Eliot, sitting up, watches him carefully. In the soft morning light, he looks like a prince: his hair is mussed but in an attractive way, and there’s a stray curl falling into his eyes, probably on purpose. Quentin wants to reach out and – something.

“El,” Quentin says sleepily, pulling himself up on his elbows and tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear. He nudges Margo’s head off his shoulder gently; she falls back to her pillow, sound asleep and kind of snoring a little. “Uh, is this – where are we – did we – um, I have like, the _worst_ hangover and I don’t remember anything from last night.” Which he doesn’t. What he does have is a horrifying memory of convincing Penny 23, by way of getting Julia on their side, to travel him, Eliot, and Margo to Vegas because Margo had dumped Josh, and wanted to – what was it? Get really, really fucking drunk and maybe fuck someone without turning them into a werewolf. And Eliot had said, _We’re due for a vacation in my opinion_. And Quentin, oh God, had agreed. Then Margo said, _Vegas bitches,_ and the rest, as they say, is history.

“We didn’t, um.” Eliot clears his throat. “I think we just slept here.” From what Quentin can see he’s still wearing his fancy vest and shirt. And his tie, slightly loosened in a way that makes Quentin want to grab him by it and kiss the ever-loving fuck out of him. (He’s not going to do that.)

“What did we _do,_  though?” Quentin asks, racking his brains for what he, Eliot, and Margo are doing in an expensive-seeming hotel room in the same bed, and what they did last night. “Did we get really drunk? I mean, obviously. I kind of still feel drunk actually.”

“Q.” Eliot’s voice is steady and level like it is whenever he’s trying to comfort Quentin. “Don’t freak out, but you should look at your hand.”

Quentin looks at his hand. There’s a shiny diamond ring on his ring finger. He stares at it.

“Oh,” Quentin says. His voice sounds like it’s coming from faraway. Maybe he _is_ still drunk. His mind wants to connect the dots – Eliot in the same bed as him, Eliot’s careful tone, Eliot avoiding his eyes, his terrible hangover – but the puzzle his mind is solving is really fucking ridiculous, so. “So last night I bought a really tacky ring?”

Eliot winces. “Look at mine.” Quentin looks – he’s always loved looking at Eliot’s hands, long and slim, whether Eliot is doing a spell or resting a hand on Quentin’s shoulder or caressing Margo’s hair or whenever he would do. Other things that he technically didn’t do in this timeline.

There’s a matching ring on Eliot’s hand.

“We got _matching_ tacky rings,” Quentin tries. “Does Margo have one? She’ll kill us for letting her buy something so tacky.”

“I would actually rather that be the case,” says Eliot, “except I also found this.” He snatches a piece of paper off of the dresser next to the bed and gives it to Quentin.

“I don’t really wanna look at this,” Quentin says honestly.

“I don’t really want you to look at it either!” Eliot says.

Quentin looks down at the piece of paper in his hand with trepidation and scans it quickly.

_This is to certify...the marriage of Quentin Coldwater...and Eliot Waugh...with their mutual agreement...in the presence of Margo Hanson..._

“No,” he says, blanching and dropping the paper.

“Yes,” Eliot confirms.

“What the fuck?” Quentin turns his gaze up towards the ceiling, just in case any old gods are listening, to silently ask them why his life is _like this_. “This shit only happens in – movies! What the fuck, Eliot? Tell me we didn’t actually get – _married_ while _drunk_ in _Vegas_.”

“I would love to tell you that,” says Eliot. “I cannot.”

“Oh my God,” Quentin says again. Margo lets out a snore.

“It’s okay,” Eliot tells him, reaching out to place a comforting hand on Quentin’s shoulder. “We’ll get an annulment. Drunk weddings in Vegas are par for the course, yeah? I’m going to – “ He makes a gesture towards a door that leads to, Quentin is presuming, the bathroom.

“Um. Yeah,” Quentin says. “Okay. Don’t hog all the hot water like you always do.”

“I don’t always do that,” Eliot protests. “I never do that.”

Quentin collapses back on the bed and closes his eyes. “Whatever you say.” He thinks he’s smiling; he thinks Eliot is, too. It’s kind of a ridiculous, hilarious situation, so. He can’t imagine what Julia is going to say. She’s definitely going to regret telling Penny 23 to listen to them. Or what _Alice_ will think. Jesus. It’s probably for the best to never tell them, and it’s probably for the best to stop thinking, wistfully, of what it would be like to actually be married to Eliot.

He _does_ know exactly what Margo’s reaction will be, though. She’s going to cackle like a goddamn witch.

────────────────────

Margo is laughing. Has been laughing, actually, for the past _ten minutes,_  ever since they got to a cafe close to the (expensive) hotel that they (Eliot and Margo) got a room in, and told her why they were wearing matching rings.

“ _Bambi,_ ” Eliot says, his glare towards her somewhat diminished by his purple sunglasses.

Margo stops laughing for a moment to wipe at her eyes. Even though Quentin is feeling decidedly grumpy towards her, he can’t help but feel a little fond. He loves the way Margo looks when she laughs.

“Are you done yet?” Quentin asks her with his arms crossed.

This is all, apparently, it takes to set Margo off again. She’s laughing so hard people at nearby tables are beginning to stare. “I’m sorry,” she says between laughs, “it’s just...you really...got married...in Vegas…”

“Ha-ha-ha laugh it up,” Eliot says sourly. “You were the witness, and you didn’t think to _stop_ us.”

Margo stops giggling and straightens indignantly. “I was drunk! I don’t remember any of that!”

“Neither do we!” Quentin says. “Let’s just agree it was a moment of mutual – idiocy, okay?”

“We kind of have a lot of those,” points out Eliot.

“I know, Eliot,” Quentin says.

“Okay, so.” Eliot waves his croissant around. “How exactly does one go about getting an annulment for a drunk Vegas wedding?”

“You’re getting it annulled?” Margo says.

“What else would we do,” Eliot says, and Quentin looks down at his coffee.

“Uh, just forget about it?” says Margo, like it’s obvious. “Not like anyone knows other than us.”

“And what about if Q actually wanted to get married to someone? Kind of a weird thing to have to bring up.”

“Or what if _you_ wanted to get married to someone,” adds Quentin.

“He doesn’t have to tell them,” Margo says impatiently, ignoring him.

“That’s, um, not honest, though,” Quentin says, and then feels stupid when Eliot and Margo both look at him.

“Fine, ignore my advice,” Margo says with a huge eye roll. “It doesn’t really matter anyways.”

“It does – I mean – matter,” Quentin says defensively.

“Okay,” Eliot indulges him, patting Quentin’s hair once absently. “Still doesn’t answer the question of how we legally become un-married though.”

“Google,” Margo says through a mouthful of blueberry muffin.

“Brilliant idea as always,” Eliot says, pushing himself out of his chair. “I’ll be right back.” Quentin watches as Eliot asks a waiter where the bathroom is, and flashes him a charming smile. The waiter looks a little starstruck even after Eliot’s left. Quentin can relate.

Margo throws a napkin at him while examining her nails, one leg crossed over the other. She looks like royalty.

“Really?” Quentin says, but he can feel the edge of his mouth tugging into a helpless smile. He gets up to throw the napkin away and is – unsteady, a little, on his feet. Maybe he’s still drunk.

“Q, are you okay?” Margo says, uncrossing her legs and sitting up straighter. She actually looks... concerned, but Quentin’s...fine...he’s just a little dizzy –

“Oh,” Quentin manages to say, “I think I’m – ” Which is when he faints.

When he’s conscious again, he’s in a hospital bed that is vaguely familiar, and Eliot is in a bed across from him.

“Hey,” Eliot says, cross-legged with his posture straight, like he’s sitting in a throne.

“Um.” Quentin scrubs at his head and pulls himself up. Brakebills, he thinks. This is the hospital at Brakebills, familiar to Quentin from all those times he and Penny ended up in here and from visiting Eliot and Julia. “What are we – I’m getting kind of sick of this to be honest.”

Eliot sighs heavily. “You and me both. Margo refuses to tell me what’s going on until she’s talked to Dean Fogg.” He makes a face. “Apparently we both fainted at the same time?”

“So our drunk wedding in Vegas couldn’t have been a _normal_ drunk wedding in Vegas, it had to be.” Quentin makes a disgruntled noise. “Some sort of weird magical ritual.”

Eliot shrugs lightly. “Not really anything new.”

Quentin shrugs back in agreement, and he and Eliot share a look – Quentin’s says _I can’t believe this shit keeps happening to us_. Eliot’s says, _Aren’t you used to it by now?_

The sound of Margo’s heels signal her arrival. “Hey, fuckers,” she says, striding over to stand in between their beds. Quentin knows Margo, and he can tell she’s worried, but to an outsider she would look completely composed. “I’ve got some news.”

Eliot gives her his small, private smile. “Go for it. I’m kind of immune to being surprised by anything now.”

“You didn’t just get married while drunk in Vegas, which is dumb enough,” Margo tells them. “You cast a binding spell. Or. I cast a binding spell, but in my defense I was seriously drunk – ”

“Remember when I said I’m immune to being surprised?” Eliot says. “I take that back.”

“What do you mean by – a binding...spell?” asks Quentin feebly.

“I mean,” Margo continues, “if the two of you are more than one room apart, you get really dizzy and faint. Sound familiar? And if you’re even farther away from each other, it’s more dangerous. So if El is in Fillory and Quentin is here – ” Her voice wavers. “You both die. So don’t do that, okay?”

“Oh my God,” says Quentin for the fourth time today. He feels a little sick. “Margo please tell me you’re fucking with us.”

“She’s not,” Eliot says, looking anywhere but at Quentin. “It’s a real spell. It’s used by engaged couples before they get married to see if they can handle spending that much time together, it’s – ridiculous, but it’s supposed to fade after two weeks. You ask a mutual friend or a family member to cast it on your engagement rings. Or.” He waves his hand with the tacky diamond ring on it around. “These also work, I guess.”

“Jesus Christ,” Quentin mutters.

“Two weeks of staying near each other, okay?” Margo says. “Tell me you can handle that.”

“We can handle that,” Quentin says, perfectly confident in this at least. If he can handle fifty years of sorting tiles with Eliot by a small cottage, he can handle two weeks of having to be near each other. “Are you sure there’s no way to get. Rid of it?”

And he knows before Margo says anything, that the answer is no, because when has his life ever been that simple?

────────────────────

Quentin told exactly one person exactly how he felt about Eliot Waugh three and a half months ago, and that person was Margo Hanson. It was before the Monster had agreed to leave Eliot, before they’d built a golem for his body to inhabit, before Harriet took over the Library, before Kady shot Everett, before he got Julia and Eliot back, before Margo got Eliot back.

He couldn’t sleep, of course – how long had it been since he’d slept properly? Before Castle Blackspire, well before he gained his memories back. Maybe as Brian, but Quentin wasn’t sure if that counted. But he couldn’t sleep, so he’d put on an oversized _Fillory_ _and Further_ sweatshirt that Julia had stolen from him, and slipped out of his room to find Margo. She’d taken the room across from him earlier, and now she was sitting against her door, head tilted back.

The sliver of light creeping in through Quentin’s half-closed door illuminated Margo, with her lipstick smudged like she hadn’t bothered to wash it off, and dark circles under her eyes that matched Quentin’s. He wasn’t going walk away from this, from a Margo with her defenses lowered.

“Hi,” Quentin had said, for lack of anything else, and Margo had twisted her fingers together instead of replying.

He hesitated at the edge of his door, and then went over, sliding down the door and settling down beside her. Margo sighed like she was annoyed with him, which was so normal Quentin almost smiled. He didn’t ask her why she wasn’t in her room. She didn’t ask him why he wasn’t in his. Quentin thought they might not say anything at all, just sit there in the dark, two aching ghosts a finger’s breadth apart. But Margo said, “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Me neither.”

“And my room – ” Margo laughed viciously. “My room is nothing like the one I have at Fillory and I can’t _stand_ being there. I’m sorry about Julia,” she said abruptly.

And Quentin swallowed. “Yeah.”

“And I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” Margo went on. “But I am now, and I swear to fucking God, I’m not giving up on Eliot ever, and I’m not giving up on Julia either because _you’ve_ never given up.”

“It’s okay that you weren’t here. You had a whole kingdom to run,” Quentin said. He felt so ridiculously relieved, that he wasn’t the only one who was going to keep fighting. Because he thought maybe this time that he’d reached his limit. “I’m sorry you’re banished.”

“I’d take Eliot over Fillory,” said Margo, and yeah, he knew that. He would, too.

There was a moment of silence. Not the uncomfortable kind, not the kind where you needed to search for empty words to offer up, but the kind of silence shared by two people who knew each other like they knew their own names.

“I miss him,” Quentin said, and he wasn’t sure why it was so easy to tell her when telling anyone else felt like pulling teeth. “I thought that, um – you should know you’re not the only one who misses him so much it’s like you can’t – you can’t _stand_ it.” He wondered if this was about Eliot or Julia. Both, maybe. They were two of the most important people in his life and they’d just been – taken away.

“Fuck.” Margo made a sound between a laugh and a sob. “It’s so fucking dumb, but I keep looking over my shoulder to tell him something and he’s not there. I need him back, I _need_ him. Shit, Q. I think you’re the only person that can understand. And not just ’cause of Julia. I think you’re the only person who loves him as much as I do. You ever gonna tell me what happened between you two?”

There wasn’t much to say in response to that. She wanted an answer Quentin wasn’t sure he knew himself. “What do you mean?” he asked, like Margo of all people wouldn’t see right through him, one super nerd to another, even if Margo was better at hiding it.

Margo rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Coldwater?”

“Okay, okay.” Maybe it was easy to tell her because Margo knew Eliot better than almost anyone in the world. Maybe it was easy to tell her because they were in the same sinking boat, trying not to drown, to make it to land. “You remember when. Um, El and I, we lived fifty years trying to find a key for the quest and we died but it was an alternative timeline?”

“I’m not ever forgetting that.”

“We fell in love,” Quentin said, words coming out in a rush. It was almost a relief to say it loud. “Or I thought we fell in love. We ended up remembering everything and – we had a _family_. I got married to – this woman, Arielle. You would’ve – you would’ve really liked her, she was. Incredible.” Quentin pressed a hand to his mouth, and oh, he was smiling. “I had a kid. His name was Teddy. I miss them so much, it’s like this – _constant_ ache, all the time.” He looked over to see if Margo had tuned him out, but she was looking at him like she was really listening. She closed the gap between them and fumbled for his hand.

“You _thought_ you fell in love?” she said quietly.

Quentin pressed the heels of his other hand to his forehead, clung tight to her hand. This rejection still stung, would maybe always sting a little. “I asked him. If we could try again in this timeline. And he – well, he turned me down, he said – I mean, it was a little crazy, I don’t know what I – what I expected. He said if we had a choice it wasn’t – it wasn’t him and it wasn’t me. So.”

A pause, then, “That goddamn son of a bitch.”

“What?” Quentin turned to look at her; she looked absolutely furious.

“We’re going to bring Eliot back,” Margo told him, “and then I’m going to _kill him again_ for being such an _idiot_ , and then bring him back to life so he can ovary the fuck up. That _moron_ , I can not _believe_ this – ”

“What?” Quentin said again.

“Tell me you didn’t believe him,” said Margo. “Tell me you’re not as dumb as him and you didn’t stop thinking Eliot loves you. Oh my God, you _did_ , didn’t you. You’re both impossible.”

“What?” It was possible Quentin was never going to say anything else again.

“I think Eliot’s probably been half in love with you since Brakebills,” Margo said, voice steady. “I think he has commitment issues and relationship issues and I think he never really lets himself have any good in his life, and you. He wouldn’t ever have believed he could have you without messing it up.”

Quentin’s mouth felt dry. “He’s not – he wasn’t – I don’t know.”

“You do,” Margo insisted.

“Maybe,” said Quentin, and couldn’t really let himself believe it. “I think – it’s okay. Being his friend is just as good.” And this was true. Being Eliot’s friend was like – easier than breathing, and Quentin would do anything to have him back just for that.

“Shut up. Seriously. This isn’t over,” Margo warned him, shoving at his shoulder. Quentin stifled a smile.

Then they were talking to each other, really talking, about all of the feelings they were carrying around. About how Quentin had never had a best friend until Julia, and Margo had never had a best friend until Eliot. About how Quentin sometimes wanted to give up; about how Margo was going to punch him in the face if he said that again. Then they were talking about all of the little things they missed – Eliot’s laugh, Julia’s smile hidden in the crook of her elbow, only needing to worry about exams, Fillory as something magical and beautiful and pure, the mosaic, Fen and Josh, home cooked meals, just Eliot, just Julia, just Fillory.

It was like a weight off his shoulders, for once telling someone how he felt. He didn’t know then, how much more complicated his feelings for Eliot were going to get.

────────────────────

“Which one?” Eliot says, holding up two identical floral shirts, two days later in Kady’s (Marina’s? Honestly, Quentin’s still not sure) apartment.

Quentin has had fifty years of experience for helping Eliot with his wardrobe, and in fifty years he’s never really become good at it. “Uhhhhh,” he says, craning his neck around to look for Margo. She’s talking to Penny 23; he tries to communicate _Help_ with wide eyes and a discreet finger pointing to Eliot. She doesn’t notice. It’s possible she noticed and is ignoring him.

“Q. I am having a _crisis_ here.”

“And I am trying to read my book,” Quentin shoots back, holding up his book for emphasis.

Eliot gives him the most adorable glare ever, narrowed eyes and pouted lips and crossed arms.

Quentin sighs. “I won’t know which one if you haven’t tried them on,” he says automatically, because it used to be one of his nearly-foolproof techniques to getting out of Eliot asking him for wardrobe advice. It also sometimes would end up with both of them shirtless – Eliot would strip right then to try on the two shirts he was struggling to choose between, and then –

Eliot pauses. He probably remembers too. God, why did Quentin have to say that? He raises his gaze to meet Quentin’s; a dare flickering in his eyes, a challenge. Quentin swallows, looks away. “Okay,” Eliot says, and starts fucking – _unbuttoning his shirt_.

Quentin’s mouth drops open. He’s probably, he thinks despairingly, blushing like a matronly aunt. “Eliot,” he hisses, “I was joking.”

Eliot shrugs elegantly. “Why not, yeah? If you’re trying to protect my virtue, Q, you’re about nine years too late.”

“That’s not – ” Quentin is trying not to look, he really is. (Not that he needs to. He could draw all of Eliot from memory.) “There are people around.”

People, as in: Margo – though she’s seen it all – and Penny 23 in the corner, and Alice, Kady, and Julia sitting by the kitchen table. Only Julia and Margo know about the wedding and the marriage, but it isn’t going to be easy to explain to anyone why Eliot is taking off his expensive, floral – how much floral can Eliot own, Quentin wonders – shirt in front of Quentin. (Julia laughed _just_ like Margo when he told her. Quentin thinks bitterly that they may not be close but they are eerily alike.)

“Oh, please,” says Eliot, moving onto another button agonizingly slowly. He’s always been a goddamn tease. Quentin kind of wants to close his eyes. He kind of wants to look at Eliot forever and ever.

Then, of course, of _course_ , Alice comes over to them, and stops abruptly.

Eliot halts on his second-last button. He has the grace to look embarrassed. Quentin feels the urge to shrivel up into a ball or move to a peaceful forest and commune with the trees.

“He was – ” Quentin starts.

“I was just – ” Eliot says at the same time.

“I don’t think I really want to. Know,” says Alice. “Actually. I just, um, Quentin, Kady and I have been working on a way to bring Penny – our Penny – back or at least talk to him, and we think we found a spell. We just need the blood of four people he cared about.”

“Oh, is that all,” Eliot says dryly, buttoning up his shirt. _There’s really no need_ _for_ that, thinks Quentin’s traitorous brain.

“I don’t think Penny really cared about me,” Quentin tells Alice. “If by cared you mean hated, then that works.” Well. That’s not really true, is it, and he knows that. They were – friends? Something like that? All Quentin knows for sure is that he misses Penny, and he wants Penny back. That qualifies as friends, probably.

“I’m not sure how much Penny really cared about me either, but we don’t actually know that many people he had in his life,” Alice says. “He was pretty private. I think he was close with Sunderland, so there’s her, me, and Kady. We just need one more person. I know this might not work, but we’re going to try. Are you in?”

“Then, okay,” says Quentin, “of course, yeah, I wanna help.”

“Great.” Alice hesitates, like she’s going to say something else. Then she turns to Eliot, asks, “Are you coming to lunch tomorrow?”

Eliot and Alice have lunch occasionally for reasons beyond Quentin. He tried asking, once, what they even talk about, and Eliot changed the subject quickly to the _weather_. It’s none of his business, obviously, it’s just. They could invite _him_. Like, occasionally, or _once._

“Shit,” Eliot says. “I can’t...leave…” He shoots Quentin a panicked glance.

“Shit,” Quentin echoes.

“What?” Alice says, and she’s way too brilliant not to figure it out, so Quentin may as well tell her. He exchanges a look between Eliot and lifts one shoulder in question. Eliot sighs and waves his hand in a gesture that’s probably meant to be _go ahead_ , but ends up looking like he’s the Queen of England. Which is close enough, actually.

“Eliot and I kind of, accidentally, uh.” Quentin pauses. “How do I put this, cast a binding spell while drunk? Actually, it was Margo, who did that, but um. Anyways, we can’t be further than a room apart.”

For a long moment Alice just stares at him. Not just in awe of how stupid they are, but. Fuck, Quentin knows Alice figured out that he and Eliot were a thing, or whatever. She even read his book, so. And this is – Quentin has no idea what she’s thinking. At least she doesn’t know about the marriage, but that mostly just makes Quentin feel guilty.

“Okay,” she says, and is walking away before Quentin can say anything else.

“I screwed that up,” Quentin says, letting his hand, outstretched to stop Alice, fall to the side. He needs to talk to her, he thinks, because – because he _does_ want her in his life. Them breaking up doesn’t change that.

“Yeah,” Eliot says.

“El,” Margo interrupts them, coming over to steal Eliot’s drink on the table in front of them, “why is your shirt unbuttoned? I thought we agreed being a stripper is _not_ a possible career choice for you.”

The sun sets outside and Julia brings Quentin an enchilada because he forgot to eat and Eliot bickers with Margo on how good of a stripper he would be and Penny 23 comes over to agree with Margo. Personally, Quentin is on Eliot’s side, but he has bigger things to worry about. Like how he’s going to be able to go two weeks needing to stay close to Eliot but not being able to touch Eliot’s skin. Like the fact that he’s legally married. Like becoming friends with Alice again. Like the rabbit that manifests in front of Margo, squeaking out, “WEDDING! NEED HELP!”

“Uh, what is that supposed to mean?” Julia asks.

“It’s probably Fen,” says Margo, rolling her eyes, halfway in Eliot’s lap.

“BRING JULIA!” another rabbit, appearing beside the other, announces.

Penny 23’s eyebrows furrow. Margo, noticing, tells him, “Relax, 23, Fen just misses her or something.”

“That’s nice,” Julia says, apparently touched.

A third rabbit says, “OH, SORRY, THIS IS FEN.”

“Jesus,” says Eliot, and Margo makes an exasperated, fond noise.

So now they’re going to Fillory. Quentin never gets to finish reading around here. He sighs and sets his book down. Pushes himself off the coach to go over to Penny 23, who looks disgruntled that no one even bothered to ask him to travel them there. Quentin closes his eyes, opens them to the polished marble of Castle Whitespire’s throne room. He used to think he would do anything to be king of this place, and now he is, and it’s. Less than he expected, and more at the same time.

Fen is standing in front of the High King’s throne talking animatedly to Josh. Rick, or whatever his name is, is standing off to the side with the other royal advisor, the one who’s in love with a sloth. Fen brightens when she sees them, rushing over to give them all, even Penny and Quentin, a hug. Josh follows at a more sedated pace, nodding at Margo awkwardly and shaking the rest of their hands.

“You made it!” she says. “And so much quicker than I expected, I really thought we’d have to wait, but you came! I have really important news, but first you should try Josh’s new cookies, they are  _divine_ – ”

“Fen,” cuts in Margo, “important news first, alright?”

“Yeah, and what’s up with the wedding and the needing help and the wanting Julia to come?” Eliot drawls.

“Oh, right,” says Fen. “The wedding is because, well. All of Fillory, and the neighboring kingdoms, are sort of under the impression that I’m married. To High King Margo.”

“Say what now,” Margo says, crossing her arms, while Eliot goes for a more resigned, “Huh, that – might as well happen.” Penny 23 and Julia stand uncomfortably like they’re intruding on a family moment, which almost makes Quentin want to laugh.

“Tick,” Fen calls over, and oh, that’s his name. “Can you please explain the situation?”

“Fen,” says Margo in a low voice, “Tick has to do whatever you say, you can order him to explain the situation.”

“Oh!” Fen says, straightening the crown on her head. “Right. Tick, I order you to explain the situation.”

Tick, a Customer Service smile painted on his face, scurries over to them, leaving Sloth Guy behind. “Your Majesties,” he says, bowing, which makes Quentin feel kind of uncomfortable, “and Your Majesties’ friends. The situation in Fillory is quite dire indeed. Fillory has never had two High Kings – ”

“I don’t give a fuck what Fillory’s never had,” Margo snaps. Though to be fair, it’s true: Fillory’s never had two High Kings, and it’s certainly never had two other kings, one with a mostly symbolic title and the other with a mostly symbolic everything, and a queen who saved all of Fillory and never really came back. “Ember and Umber are dead, so we can do whatever the fuck we want.”

“Yes,” Tick says, smile getting considerably strained, “if High King Margo were to listen to what I have to say, she would see that I am aware of that. She’s only told me fifty times, after all!” He laughs. Margo glares at him, and he stops immediately. “What I was going to say, is that because you and High King Fen have decided to rule the kingdom of Fillory together, the people of Fillory have naturally assumed that you intend to be married.”

“ _Naturally_ assumed?” Eliot says.

“In their defense, the only other time a banishment was lifted was in the case of Queen Priya the Fierce, when the previous High King died, and in his place the new High King Marcus the Gentle, who was in love with her, renounced her banishment and – ”

“Um,” interrupts Julia, hesitantly, “is there a reason I’m here?”

“Yes, actually,” Fen says, “the people of Fillory have been setting up altars and constructing statues in your name.”

“Wait, what?” says Julia.

“They know you as Our Lady of the Tree,” Fen explains. “They believe you’re the new goddess of Fillory, replacing Ember and Umber. It’s been a long time since you appeared, though, so I thought you could go with Josh and maybe lift their spirits a bit?”

When Julia chose to become a goddess again, she’d made sure it would be on her own terms, but Quentin’s sure this isn’t what she’d pictured. He feels so proud of her he thinks his heart might burst. They’re living their childhood dreams right now, he thinks, nudging her and smiling.

Julia, looking shell shocked, says, “I. Sure, of course.”

“Okay, get to the point, Tick,” Eliot says. “Fillory and Loria and everyone think Bambi’s married to my wife. What now?”

“Well, we have to have a wedding,” Fen tells him, as though it’s obvious.

“A – what?” Margo says, closing her eyes briefly like she can’t believe this is happening to her. “Why in the ever-loving fuck do we need to have a wedding? Why can’t we just explain that we’re not married?”

“The people would revolt!” Fen says. Penny 23 also closes his eyes like he can’t believe this is happening to him. No wonder he and Margo get along so well. “There’s already been unrest in several villages, because they’re upset about how either we’re women or both High Kings. A wedding would restore their equilibrium very much. I know it’s not the most ideal situation, Margo, but it’ll mostly be a symbolic wedding. And you can always take another husband.”

“I’m a werewolf,” says Margo, ignoring Tick’s gasp, “I can’t take another husband unless it’s Josh.”

“Fillorian marriage is seriously fucked up,” Eliot announces. He’s looking at Margo with concern. Of course, Quentin knows intimately that Eliot’s been in this situation before.

Fen turns to Margo anxiously. Her puppy-dog eyes are a work of art, really. “I suppose we can try and calm the people down…”

“Wasn’t it Ember and Umber who made up all of these rules?” asks Julia. “Technically, do any of them still apply?”

“We know jackshit about this stuff,” Eliot says. “Bambi, I know this is important to you, but maybe we should – “

“No.” Margo rolls her eyes, but she looks more unsettled than Quentin is used to seeing her. “We’ll get married. We can figure something out later if we need to, we always do. El, you’re obviously my maid of honor, put your groomzilla instincts to use. Q, you can’t leave anyways, so you’re helping too. And you’re a bridesmaid.”

“Right,” Quentin says, managing to contain his horror. (El and Margo are both nightmares when it comes to planning weddings.) Eliot grins at him, reaches out to touch Quentin’s shoulder sympathetically. Quentin flinches. How Eliot’s touch can still be tainted by the Monster, he doesn’t know. Eliot moves his hand back and stops smiling. He whispers a quiet, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Quentin says. “Seriously.” Eliot’s hands, Eliot’s eyes, Eliot’s curls, not the Monster.

Margo hasn’t noticed. She asks Fen, “Are there any other fucked up things we need to fix?”

“Thankfully, no!” Fen says. “Also, the new High King’s crown I asked my dad to create is almost ready, so everyone will stop questioning your authority or my authority or the authority of this whole kingdom.”

“Great,” Margo says. “I guess Eliot can wear my crown or Alice’s.”

“I would look great in your crown,” Eliot says, which is true.

“Now I’m going to take a very, very long nap,” Margo announces. “If anyone bothers me, I’ll rip their eyes out and make a collection like the Fairy Queen.”

Tick inches away.

“I will – ” Julia makes a gesture at the exit. “Go lift the people of Fillory’s spirits, I guess.” She turns to Penny 23, with a hand on his arm, “You coming?”

“Sure,” says Penny 23, looking bemused, and follows her and Josh out of the castle.

Once she’s gone, Eliot says quietly to Quentin, “Did Margo seem a little...off to you? Like, as soon as the wedding with Fen came up? Different than the way someone would be off if they had to shakily consent to a wedding?”

“Definitely.”

“Hm,” Eliot murmurs. “Suspicious.”

And then Fen was hurrying back to them to say that a group of farmers were approaching the castle, wanting to meet with a king or queen to discuss whether Fillory’s policies regarding its subjects were going to change, and it somehow became Quentin’s duty to talk to him with Eliot and Fen, who wanted ‘back up’. (Fen was the one who used air quotes.) It was somehow easier than Quentin had expected, and Fen was right there to tell him what the policies actually were. Maybe Quentin could help out with the smaller parts of ruling a kingdom.

And it was weird, wasn’t it, that he felt like he was at home?

────────────────────

Eliot came back from the Monster different.

Not just different, like a person would be different after being possessed by a monster who tortured your friends and killed a lot of people in your body, but different like. When it became apparent that everyone had gotten over, mostly, Alice’s betrayal, he asked her to have lunch with him. When Margo asked him how he was feeling, instead of making a joke, he said, “Not really, actually,” and then they had a conversation like Quentin guessed they hadn’t had in a while, and their friendship was more foolproof than it had ever been, stronger than steel. When Julia couldn’t sleep because, she told Quentin, of how it felt to be robbed of her own power to control her body again, Eliot, who couldn’t sleep either, crept out of his room to just sit with her. Quentin, who couldn’t sleep even though he’d gotten them back, had stumbled upon them once. There was Julia, sitting in front of the TV, switching listlessly through channels, and Eliot, next to her. It wasn’t as though they were talking to each other very much. But he thought, what a comfort it would be to know someone who knew exactly what you were going through, was sitting next to you. You didn’t need words for that.

Eliot had always cared more than he’d wanted to admit, had always been kinder than he thought he was. Maybe Quentin was overthinking this.

He held on tight to the memory of the way it had felt to hug Eliot for the first time in months, him and Eliot and Margo a tangle together, all three breathing for the first time in months. He was _alive_ again. Breathe, in, out, in, out, with Eliot’s hand holding on to the back of his shirt, crying or laughing.

He didn’t think about how Alice kept looking at him out of the corner of her eye or how it was like they didn’t fit together any more, two people who’d grown apart and couldn’t go back. He didn’t think about Eliot with his eyes bright, saying: _Fifty years. Who gets proof of concept like that?_ _Peaches and plums, motherfucker,_ as though the words meant something to him, when Quentin had thought it was just him. He didn’t think about all the hope that had flooded through him when Eliot reached out to shove at his shoulder, smile soft. He didn’t think about how Eliot kept hesitantly starting to tell him something, and stopping. Eliot was in the infirmary at Brakebills for a month, recovering from being possessed, and Julia was there for a few weeks because Margo had used her axes on the monster’s sister. Every time Quentin would come visit, which was every day, Eliot would look at him like – he didn’t know what.

Time went on. Alice kissed him when they saw each other, which was occasionally, and he loved her, and she loved him. Eliot left the infirmary and moved into Kady’s apartment because he said the Physical Cottage made him sick. Quentin tried to give Penny 23 the shovel talk, and it was very unsuccessful, and he was never going to live it down. Julia was a goddess. Penny 23, bizarrely, kept going to hang out with Marina and her girlfriend. Kady and Alice were working with the hedge witches and the Library, or something, and Harriet had replaced Everett on Zelda’s suggestion. Margo went to Fillory and got her banishment lifted. Even the Monster, in its new body, was cajoled into leaving Quentin and going out to explore the world or Starbucks or God knows what.

There was just Quentin and Eliot who didn’t really have anything to do, Quentin’s depression worse than it had been for a – long time and Eliot a dethroned High King. So Quentin went to therapy for Julia, because she thought he should and she worried about him, and got new meds for himself, because _fuck_ magic being about pain. He was going to fix things, and he didn’t need any pain to do it, only love and wonder and hope.

The two of them were left in the apartment alone sometimes, because Eliot hadn’t recovered enough to go back to Fillory, where he was also still legally dead, and Quentin had missed him so much it felt like a physical ache, and everyone else had all these quests and problems to solve. Margo stayed with them most of the time, but she had a kingdom to run and Fen and Josh waiting for her. She wasn’t there when Quentin finally let himself be furious at Eliot and scream and yell and say _none of this would have happened if you’d listened to me._ Eliot had looked at him calmly, said, _I’m sorry. But I would do the same thing all over again._

A month after he’d come out of the hospital, Eliot cleared his throat and said, “Hey.”

They’d been sitting in the two chairs by the fireplace, Quentin sipping on one of Eliot’s concoctions, and Quentin had turned to face him. “Hey,” he said.

Eliot drew in a shaky breath and laughed a little. He was sitting straight in his chair, hands interlocked together and foot going _tap-tap-tap_ on the carpet. “I, um. Sorry, I just. I’ve been meaning to tell you something for a while, it just felt like there was never a right time, you know?”

Quentin made an effort to sit up straighter. “You can tell me.” _Anything._

“How are things with Alice?” Eliot said instead, randomly. “Is it, um. Good.”

“Eliot. What did you wanna tell me?”

“I,” Eliot started. He was stumbling over his words the way Quentin did, not Eliot, smooth and polished. “Remember when you said – we – work? That we should give – us – a shot?”

Quentin’s heart stuttered. He was trying to say something and he couldn’t – he wasn’t – he felt so embarrassed, and _angry_ , and he thought again, of Eliot throwing Quentin’s words back at him. Had he meant it?

“No, don’t,” Eliot said before he could manage to say anything. “I need to say this. You were right.” Quentin went completely still. “I was terrified. I thought. I thought that the mosaic was the most beautiful thing to happen to me and I didn’t want to ruin it. We’re not the people we were there. And I _always_ mess everything up. So I – I ran, like I always do. I made all these dumb excuses, to hide the truth, which is that.”

 _He wouldn’t ever have believed he could have you without messing it up,_  echoed Margo’s voice in his head. “What are you saying?” Quentin’s voice was numb even to his own ears.

“Q, I’m in love with you,” Eliot said, and the whole world went hushed, quiet.

Quentin felt his mouth twitch up, an involuntary action, even as his mind started whirling and his heart started pounding. Eliot’s hand on his neck, he thought, and his heart, oh, his heart. He’d thought he’d moved on.

“I.” Quentin’s voice wavered. “All that shit you said – ”

“They were dumb excuses,” said Eliot and looked so ashamed Quentin wanted to touch him, or something. “I’m sorry. And I know that you’re with Alice now, I’m not trying to – I hope you’re both happy. Seriously, I do. But one thing I learned stuck in my own mind is that I want. To try, Q. To be better, I wanna be braver.”

“You are,” Quentin said, like on autopilot.

“Not really,” Eliot said, smiling at him. “I’m sorry if this makes things awkward.”

“Stop apologizing.” Quentin needed to think, he needed. A clear head, that wasn’t filled with the way Eliot looked right then, his eyelashes fluttering and warm light on his skin and his shirt sleeves rolled up.

_Q, I’m in love with you._

“Say something?” Eliot’s voice was nervous. “I’m not asking you for anything, promise. I know you’ve moved on.”

“I made myself move on,” said Quentin, and clenched his fists. “I’m with Alice, I can’t just – ”

“Okay,” Eliot said immediately. “Hey. That’s okay.” He leaned forward, in Quentin’s direction. The way he smiled was more familiar to Quentin than the way Fillory and Further: Book One began.

“I need some time,” Quentin said, forcing the words out, “to think about this. I’m still with Alice, and I – need time.“

“Yeah,” said Eliot easily, and that was that. Eliot reached out for him the same way he always had. Quentin reached back. Muscle memory; fifty years. Alice broke up with him a few weeks later, or technically it was mutual. Quentin was mostly having a mental breakdown when they got back together anyways. He thought, hoped, it was the best for the both of them.

He asked Julia, once, if she loved Penny 23, and she said, softly, “He makes me laugh.” And all he could think of was Eliot, because Eliot made _him_ laugh.

He had no idea what he should do about Eliot and him, him and Eliot. Eliot didn’t talk about his feelings again. Maybe he was over them. Maybe he’d gotten over them in the time it took Quentin to make a decision.

Months and months of pushing away his feelings for Eliot, of forcing them back down and accepting his fate as only ever being Eliot’s best friend – here was the opportunity presented, to have Eliot again, and yet Quentin couldn’t get it together long enough to tell Eliot how he was feeling.

And then Margo dumped Josh and wanted a vacation and they went to Vegas and got married and cast a binding spell. What Quentin was supposed to do now, he had no idea.

────────────────────

“So you’re like, officially Fillory’s goddess,” Quentin says to Julia. He’s sitting on Eliot’s throne, which scandalized Tick and Sloth Guy and Eliot himself, all talking about wedding preparations a distance away, but whatever. Julia sat on the first throne she saw, which is Alice’s, and it’s not like Quentin is going to sit three seats away from her when they’re trying to have a _conversation_.

It’s technically only Alice’s throne symbolically, actually, and Quentin doesn’t know how to feel about that. He wishes Alice had been given time to really be a queen. He wishes it hadn’t been taken away from her.

“Well, yeah, I mean, I guess,” says Julia. “Shit. I don’t know how to be a goddess of an entire world.”

“I think you’re going to be great at it, actually,” Quentin tells her. “Do a better job than Ember and Umber, at least.”

Julia snorts. “Thanks, King Quentin.”

“Shut up,” Quentin says. “Right now I’m, um, actually, like Doomed Bridesmaid Quentin. Margo keeps talking about wedding dresses and decorations. Eliot’s gone insane and it’s not even his wedding.”

“Yeah, his wedding was a lot more simple. Required very little preparation,” says Julia, trying not to smile and failing completely.

“Oh my God, seriously?” Quentin says. “Get out of my castle.”

Julia makes an affronted noise and shoves at him. “Get out of my _world_.”

“Okay, yeah, I can’t top that,” admits Quentin.

“This is weird, though,” Julia says. “You’re a married man. And I wasn’t even at your wedding.”

“You’re a _goddess,_ how’s that for weird? And I was _drunk,”_  protests Quentin.

“Still hilarious,” Julia says. “How’s that ring, by the way?”

Quentin looks down at his hand tragically. “As ugly as ever. But, I mean, ten more days to go, and then I can take it off.” Ten more days, and Eliot would probably stay in Fillory. Ten more days, and they wouldn’t have to be legally married anymore. Ten more days of having Eliot no further than a room’s distance away from him.

“Right,” says Julia. “I guess I’ll stay here with you.”

Quentin nods. “For all the loyal subjects that worship you?”

“Dick,” Julia says, laughing. “Fen also wants me to be a bridesmaid.”

“Didn’t know you guys were so close.”

“She’s a good friend,” Julia says. “We helped abolish fairy slavery together, so.”

“Quentin!”

“Oh, shit,” Quentin murmurs. “Eliot.”

“Your husband awaits,” Julia says cheekily, slipping off of Alice’s throne, or Fen’s, now. Quentin keeps forgetting. “I have to find Penny, actually, I need him to bring Alice here because she needs your blood?”

“Oh, shit,” Quentin says again.

“Your life is a mess,” Julia tells him, pressing a kiss to his cheek before wandering away to find Penny 23, who is most likely sampling Josh’s cakes in the kitchen. Quentin never knew that Pennys could have such a sweet tooth.

“Quentin!” Eliot repeats, voice getting progressively louder and irritated the longer Quentin goes without coming over, and Quentin rolls his eyes. He pushes himself off the throne and walks over to where Eliot is intently arguing the merits of white vs. pink flowers.

“Q, good, you’re here,” Eliot says. “I’m not sure about the whole _theme._ ”

“Eliot,” Quentin says carefully, looking at all the Fillorian wedding experts Eliot had hired, who had been smiling and were not anymore. “I think it’s a little late to change the theme.”

“I know!” Eliot flaps his hands around haphazardly. “I can’t believe we’re supposed to plan this entire wedding in less than a month. Jesus, I know Fillorians are seriously impatient, but this is ridiculous!”

Quentin coughs, smiles at the wedding experts. “The wedding’s going to be great.”

“It can’t just be _great_ ,” says Eliot. “It needs to be _perfect._ ”

“Can you, um.” Quentin makes a gesture towards the exit at the wedding experts, Tick, and Sloth Advisor. They all bow before leaving, which is still really weird.

“Okay,” Quentin says. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Eliot sighs. “Nothing! Nothing is. Going on. I just need this wedding to be perfect for Bambi and for Fen. I mean, something’s definitely going on with Margo and Fen is going to have to marry another person she doesn’t want to. It needs to be the best wedding in the history of Fillorian weddings. Which, let’s be honest, there is _not_ a lot of competition.”

“There’s that,” Quentin allows. “What else?”

“You just don’t stop, do you,” Eliot murmurs. “Fine! But you can’t tell Margo.” He points a threatening finger at Quentin and Quentin nods encouragingly. “Okay. I. Kind of miss being High King. I don’t _want_ to be High King anymore, I don’t really think I’m the one for the job, honestly. Margo and Fen have got it covered. This is going to sound stupid, but it just felt like. Fillory is my home, and it saved me, and I wanted to save it back.”

“That’s not stupid,” Quentin says softly.

“It felt like my destiny. Like I finally had something I was meant to be or do,” Eliot says back, quiet. “Don’t tell Margo,” he adds again. “I don’t want her to know I’m being a dumbass.”

“I won’t tell Margo,” Quentin promises. He thinks of setting a crown on Eliot’s head of curls, Eliot’s eyes briefly flickering shut, lavender eyeshadow and long eyelashes, cheekbones and the way he looked at Quentin. _So destiny is – is bullshit, but you are High King in your blood. And somehow that makes sense, you know?_

“Hey,” Quentin says. “You did save Fillory. You and Margo did it together. So what if you’re not meant to be High King. You’re still – fucking royalty. And this is still your home. This is still where you – you belong. I think you’re still. A really good king.”

Eliot’s mouth quirks. “You ever think about becoming a motivational speaker, Q?”

Quentin rolls his eyes. Eliot says, then, “Thanks,” and he reaches out for a hug. Quentin obliges. He thinks where he belongs is in Eliot’s arms.

 _Q, I’m in love with you._ He thinks, again, about giving it another shot. Third time’s the charm? But fuck, Quentin doesn’t know what to do. He’s so confused, all the time, and angry.

 _That’s not me and that’s definitely not you_ –

“Okay, mental breakdown mostly over,” Eliot says, pulling away. His hand strays on Quentin’s arm. Muscle memory. “I need help planning Margo’s fabulous bachelorette party. Wait, do you know if Margo will be able to leave Fillory after she gets married?” He frowns. “I guess there’s always the Margolem.”

“Um,” Quentin says. “I kind of, like, destroyed the Margolem? But if Julia’s the new goddess of Fillory, maybe she can change the rules.”

“Hopefully,” Eliot agrees. “So obviously for the bachelorette party, we’ll have you and me, and we can invite – ”

“Alice,”  Quentin says.

“Sure,” Eliot says.

“No, I mean, Alice is here.” Which she is, standing in front of Penny 23 at the entryway of the throne room.

Quentin raises his hand in what is, embarrassingly, a wave. Alice doesn’t return his wave because she’s a normal person. Well, a normal person holding a knife and a container for his blood, but.

“Uh, stay here, and I’ll go out,” Quentin tells Eliot. He scrunches up his face. “Or is that further than a room?”

“Mm, probably not,” Eliot says. “I’ll tell you if I feel like a Victorian maiden.”

Once Eliot is gone and Penny 23 has followed him out, Quentin makes his way over to Alice.

“Hey,“ he says, tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear. “Uh, are you just gonna. Go for it?”

Alice sighs, pushes up her glasses. “Let’s just do this. Give me your hand.”

Quentin winces. He would really love to find out why he always ends up having to have his hand sliced open. When she’s done, he says, “You want to sit down?”

Alice slips her container with his blood (gross) into her bag. She looks at him and raises an eyebrow, but he thinks she’s almost smiling. “For what?”

“We should talk,” Quentin says. Alice doesn’t argue, so he leads them to a wooden table overflowing with cake samples. “Sorry about the mess,“ he says to Alice, “Margo’s, uh, getting married? You’re invited.”

Alice perches awkwardly on the chair on the opposite side of the table. There’s a moment of uncomfortable silence.

“Um, I’m sorry – ” Quentin starts.

“No, I’m sorry,” Alice says, “I don’t – mean to push you away, I just don’t know how to be friends with you without also sleeping together, or whatever, I – ”

“No, me neither,” says Quentin and almost wants to laugh. “But I want to try.”

Alice smiles. She’s looking at him like she did before they got back together. Hopeful. “Me too,” she says, softly.

“So maybe we don’t work, together,” Quentin says, “romantically. We’ve never really tried being just friends before, but I want to. I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” Alice says, “no, you’re right. So we – we skipped a step. Let’s go back, because – I don’t want to give you up, Quentin.”

Quentin reaches out for her hand, and grasps it, locking their fingers together. It feels like the beginning of something different, something better.

“So I’ll see you at Margo’s wedding, I guess,” Alice says, “since you can’t leave Fillory for the time being.”

“About that,” Quentin begins.

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me,” says Alice, shaking her head. “Seriously, I – I’m over you, Q. You can cast binding spells with whoever you want, and uh, marry whoever you want.”

Quentin sputters, “How did you – uh, it was an accident – ”

Alice gives him a knowing look. “Matching rings? And I had a class on sex and love magic. The spell you cast was weirdly popular in the 90s.”

“Naturally,” Quentin mutters. “It was – really an accident, though.”

“Okay,” Alice says. “I already know Eliot’s crazy about you, though, so you don’t need to try and protect my feelings or whatever you think you’re doing.”

“He’s not,” Quentin says, mortified, “he really is not.”

“Okay,” says Alice again, picking up her bag and standing up. “I guess I should tell you. It was an accident when I kissed Kady the first time, but it wasn’t an accident the next ten.”

Quentin’s mouth drops open. “You kissed – _Kady_? Uh, wow, I’m. Really happy for you two, when did this _happen_ – ”

“A few days ago,” Alice says. “See you around Q.”

“See you,” Quentin says feebly, and eats several cake samples after she walks away, because he _deserves_ them.

────────────────────

Here’s the thing about having to be no more than a room’s distance away from Eliot in Fillory: their rooms are definitely not right next to each other. At times like this, Quentin really wishes there was a spell to create a bed out of thin air.

“I could ask someone to get a – ” Eliot pauses, turning to Quentin. They’re standing in the middle of the doorway to his bedroom, which is every inch as majestic as Quentin would expect. “What’s the equivalent of a sleeping bag in Fillory? We definitely do not have extra mattresses.”

“It’s okay,” Quentin says. It is most definitely not okay. “It’s a big bed.” And they’ve shared a bed before, he doesn’t add.

“Okay,” Eliot says. “Yeah. It’ll be fine. Do you wanna – change?”

Eliot knows perfectly well that Quentin usually sleeps in his underwear.

“I didn’t really bring pyjamas,” Quentin says. “So.”

“Oh. Right.”

“I’ll get my clothes tomorrow,” Quentin offers. “I can sleep in my clothes for one night, it won’t kill me.”

“Yeah.” Eliot ducks his head down, hiding a smile. “I mean, you could borrow a pair of mine. You might, like, drown in them, but – ”

“Shut up,” Quentin says, and is glad Eliot is looking away so he can’t see Quentin’s smile.

Quentin goes over to the bed and takes off his shirt. Eliot is, pointedly, not looking. Quentin swallows against his embarrassment, and climbs in the bed, pulling up the covers and turning on his side. He knows Eliot must be changing into his fancy, silk or velvet or whatever pyjamas on the other side of the bed, but he doesn’t look.

He knows what Eliot looks like, anyway, more than anyone else in the world.

Quentin can hear it when Eliot comes to lay down next to him, but he closes his eyes and makes his breathing relaxed, even. Eliot knows that Quentin never falls asleep that quickly, but he says nothing.

He imagines a world where he would turn around and close the distance between him and Eliot, rest his head on Eliot’s shoulder and go to sleep safe, warm, at peace. Or, they had a world like that. He could have a world like that again, or could have had one.

He doesn’t know what to do. Eliot is right there, but he feels so faraway.

Quentin stays on his side. The bed is big enough that he doesn’t wake up curled next to Eliot, so close that he can’t tell where he begins and Eliot ends. He almost wishes he had.

────────────────────

“Oh, hi Fen,“ Quentin says.

“Hi!” Fen says. Her hair is tied back in an elaborate style that makes Quentin think of Margo, and right now she’s looking at him like he’s a little insane. “Um, is it an Earth tradition to sit outside the bathroom of your beloved?”

“My what,” Quentin says flatly. “No, this is – a spell, I have to stay close to Eliot. Did you say my _beloved_?”

“Your husband?” Fen tries. “Oh, boyfriend?”

“Eliot and I are not,” Quentin says, “any of those. Well. Voluntarily.”

“I see,” says Fen. She does not look like she sees. “Only, you’re wearing the same ring as Eliot, and I’ve come to realize that Eliot cares a great deal for you, and Margo told me – ”

Quentin will murder Margo. Okay, no, but if Quentin was less _scared_ of Margo, _then_ he would murder her. “Whatever Margo told you,” he says through gritted teeth, “is probably wrong. This is just a big misunderstanding. Right, Eliot?” he calls out.

A shower being turned off, and, “Right!” Eliot yells. The shower turns on again. Fillory lacks running water; in fact, Fillory used chamber pots before Eliot and Margo, but the two of them had used a spell to install bathrooms and install showers in their bathrooms. They didn’t, of course, extend that last courtesy to Quentin, and yeah, okay, Quentin isn’t usually living at Castle Whitespire, and he likes baths, but _still_. He is definitely using Eliot’s bathroom after, which is why he has his clothes bundled up in a towel in his lap.

“Did you want to tell Eliot something?” Quentin asks Fen.

“Can you tell him I’ve invited Fray to the wedding, and I’d like him to talk to her?” Fen says. “She’s a little upset, because we thought he was dead, and he hasn’t talked to her since he came back.”

Quentin is ninety-eight percent certain that Fray isn’t actually Eliot’s daughter, but he dutifully tells Fen, “I will do that.”

Fen beams at him before turning away with a swish of her skirts. Quentin catches a glimpse of a. Knife? Strapped to her leg?

Eliot starts humming, singing softly. Quentin feels himself smiling, out of control and fond. He loves Eliot’s voice. Teddy loved it too; he remembers a dozen days outside the cottage in the sun, with Eliot singing to Teddy, and Teddy giggling, trying his best to sing along, his laughter infectious. Arielle and Quentin’s voices left much to be desired, but sometimes they would join along too.

“Oh, Q,” Eliot says, “this one’s for you.” He starts singing – Shake It Off by Taylor Swift.

Quentin covers his face with his hands, but he’s still smiling, and he can’t _stop_. “I hate you!” he says, loud enough for Eliot to hear.

The shower turns off. Eliot sings, “I go on too many dates, but I can’t  make em stay.” He comes out of the bathroom with wet hair and one of his fashionable Fillorian outfits.

Quentin scrambles up from the floor and says, “You’re terrible.”

“Oh, Q,” Eliot says again, tweaking Quentin’s hair. “You love it.” And shit, Quentin thinks as he walks into the bathroom, he really does. Day five, and he’s already considering pulling Eliot’s sleeve back and kissing him, easy and slow, the way he used to kiss Eliot in the morning. Day five, and he has to remind himself, that Eliot hasn’t said anything about his feelings since that evening, that he’s tired of being with people who don’t trust his love, that he needs to figure this shit out, but on his own.

Day five, and when Quentin leaves the bathroom, scrubbing at his hair with a towel, Eliot is talking to Julia on his bed.

“Hi,” Julia says, looking up at him. “We’re talking about the bachelorette parties.”

“But it’s a good thing that you’re here, because we have a lot of work and a lot of screaming to do,” Eliot says, springing up from his bed.

“And Penny kind of wants to kill you,” Julia informs Quentin. “Something about Taylor Swift?”

Quentin groans. “That was Eliot’s fault, _not_ mine.”  

“I’ll pass on the news,” says Julia dryly.

“Quentin, let’s go,” Eliot says, drawing out the syllables of each word.

“You know, we didn’t spend this much time preparing for _your_ wedding,” Quentin grumbles. He realizes his mistake when Julia laughs, but it’s too late to do anything about it now.

Eliot quirks an eyebrow and says, “Which one?”

“Both,” says Julia, and he can’t say she’s wrong.

Eliot wants to go yell at Margo and Fen’s poor wedding planners, so Quentin bids Julia goodbye. Eliot drags Quentin with him from one end of the castle to the other, bickering over decorations and invitations and whether a bachelorette party is even necessary (“Obviously, it is, and I just need to figure out who to invite to each one,” Eliot says sharply. “Or maybe,” he’d added, stroking his chin, “we could have a joint one.”) Quentin has to hurry to keep up with Eliot’s long, long legs, though Eliot’s constant grip on his hand helps. They periodically pass Margo and Fen on their thrones, being fed cake samples by Josh while their advisors go on and on about all the things they need to focus on.

At one point, Quentin, tired of chasing after Eliot, asks him, “What are we even doing?”

“Hm?” Eliot says, halting in the middle of following a terrified decorations expert. “We’re making sure these people do their jobs! And someone,” he says loudly, “get me some wine.”

“Mm-hm, right,” Quentin says. “I think we can take a break. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Nooo,” Eliot says, accepting a glass of wine from someone rushing over, “everything needs to be good enough for the people of Fillory, who are temperamental little shits. The whole point of this wedding is to make Margo and Fen more likeable rulers. Nothing gets bored people more excited than a royal wedding.”

“Okay, well, um, I think we’re going to accomplish that,” Quentin says, gently tugging at Eliot’s hand. “Let’s like, go help Margo and Fen?”

“Okay,” Eliot says, sighing, and lets Quentin lead him to the throne room.

────────────────────

Blood.

Eliot’s blood, everywhere, all over Quentin’s hands, all over Margo’s jeans.

Margo, trying not to cry. Threats about what she’ll do if Eliot dies on her. “Eliot,” she says, again and again and again. And Quentin, hands shaking, praying, thinking, _please._

Eliot, exposed to the Poison Room and possessed by a being powerful than a god for months, hit with a spell by the monster’s sister – _We don’t know if he’ll make it,_  Dean Fogg had said.

In real life, Eliot wakes up. Curls his fingers around Margo’s wrist, says, “Well, if you put it so nicely, Bambi.” Tries to smile at Quentin.

But this is the nightmare.

In the nightmare Eliot’s eyes stay closed, and Margo keeps saying his name, keeps holding his hand like he would hold it back any second now. In the nightmare, they don’t get Julia back and she kills everyone.

Julia with her face blank, looking at Quentin like a stranger. Eliot’s blood. Margo’s face streaked with tears. Alice on the ground. Penny with one hand stretching forwards to Julia, like he can _convince_ her to come back, and the other hand in front of Kady, like he would protect her even if they didn’t know each other. Kady the last to go down. When she does, Quentin knows it’s done. In real life, Margo was there with the axes, and Eliot wasn’t, had already recovered. But this is the nightmare.

This is the nightmare: there’s just him. He can’t save anyone. They’re all gone. He can’t save any of them.

“Quentin.”

Eliot’s voice – panicked. Quentin’s eyes fly open and he scrambles up from Eliot’s bed, sweating and shivering.

“Q,” Eliot says. “Are you okay?”

Quentin gasps out, “Eliot?”

“I’m right here.” Eliot places his hands on Quentin’s arms, soothingly, rubs back and forth. Quentin falls back on the bed and tries to breathe. This is not the nightmare, he tells himself. Eliot is alive, Margo is alive, Alice is alive, Julia is alive, Kady is alive, Penny is alive-ish. Penny 23 is alive, anyways.

“Shit,” Quentin says. He almost laughs. “I just wanted to take a nap.”

“What do you need me to do?” Eliot says. He brushes a strand of Quentin’s hair away from his face; it falls back in place. “Hey, Q. Look at me.”

Quentin looks at Eliot’s eyes, worried and warm. He looks at Eliot’s mouth, once. He breathes.

“It’s okay,” he tells Eliot. “It’s fine, just.”

“Just – ”

“Stay,” Quentin says. “And can you – talk to me?” He feels stupid as soon as he says it. But Eliot presses a kiss to his hair and forehead. He stays, and starts talking, a steady stream of little thoughts he’s had throughout the day. Quentin makes occasional interjections, but mostly stays quiet. He feels okay again, instead of someone with trauma piled on top of trauma piled on top of trauma.

They’ve been talking for so long that Eliot’s voice is getting hoarse when Margo bursts in, wild-eyed and hair a mess.

“Margo,” Eliot says, startled. He looks at Quentin quickly: _do you want us to go?_ Quentin shakes his head.

“Uh, Margo, are you okay?” he ventures.

“I have a problem and I need your help, dickholes,” Margo says.

“Okay,” Eliot says, standing up and leading her over to the bed with a hand resting on the small of her back.

“I kissed Fen,” Margo says as soon as she’s sat down.

“Uh,” Quentin says.

“Ah,” Eliot says.

“I came to you bitches for _advice._ ” Margo glares at them. “Not uhs and ahs. And what is that even supposed to mean, El? What the flying fuck do you mean _ah_?”

“Let’s calm down, yeah, Bambi?” Eliot says. “You made out with Fen. Did she kiss you first?”

“Yes,” Margo says, reaching up to touch her lips. Quentin doesn’t think she even realizes she’s doing it, and something in his heart goes soft.

“That’s good news,” Eliot tells her encouragingly.

“Good _news_? It was bad enough that we have to get married, and now it turns out I’m attracted to _Fen_?”

“Call me crazy, but I’m not exactly seeing the problem here,” Quentin says. “You like Fen, she likes you, you’re getting married.”

“I gotta side with Q here,” agrees Eliot, smiling a little.

“First of all,” Margo says, “I never said anything about feelings – ”

“You didn’t really have to,” Eliot says, a gentle look on his face. “Come on, Margo.”

Margo sighs. “Okay,” she says miserably, “I like her. A lot. I like her stupid face and her hair and her knives and the way she uses emojis and how much she cares about people. Do _not_ look at me like that, Coldwater. Even if I like her, and even if she likes me, there’s no guarantee that lasts. Then what? We end up fighting when we’re supposed to be ruling Fillory together. What a disaster would that be?”

“Oh, please,” Eliot says.

“She’s your wife.”

“Was my wife,” corrects Eliot. “I want both of you to be happy. And pathetic excuses are my forte, not yours.”

Quentin’s head snaps up at this, but Eliot keeps going. “You and Fen are friends, first and foremost. You can stay friends even if your relationship fails.”

“I bargained her daughter away and manipulated her into agreeing,” counters Margo.

“Okay,” Eliot says, wincing, “that was – ”

“Shitty,” Quentin contributes, “but I don’t think Fen is still holding a grudge against you for that. I think she forgave you a while ago.”

Margo says, “I don’t exactly have a great track record with relationships. This won’t end well. It’ll just break both of our hearts.”  

“Margo,” Eliot says, “I say this with love, but I’m gonna need you to ovary the fuck up.”

A moment of silence, then, “Oh, shit,” Margo says. “You’re right.”

“Obviously,” Eliot says, but his eyes are soft.

Maybe it’s seeing the way Eliot dealt so easily with Margo’s relationship issues, or Margo in love, or how Eliot said _pathetic_ _excuses,_ but Quentin suddenly wants – to take Eliot’s face into his hands and kiss him.

Yeah, he hasn’t moved on. _But what are you gonna do about it?_ Quentin asks himself.

Eliot convinces Margo to go tell Fen what she told them, and asks Quentin if he feels up to going through the clock for his clothes, and Quentin looks at him. Thinks, _this is the one._

“Yeah,” he says out loud, and takes Eliot’s offered hand.

────────────────────

In the Physical Cottage, Todd is snoring on the couch with a packaged Barbie Doll in his hand and a girl draped over him when Quentin and Eliot come through the clock.

“I don’t even wanna know,” is Eliot’s response, shuddering. “Let’s get out of here and go to the apartment.”

“Right,” Quentin says, so they leave behind the Cottage and Brakebills. It’s a borderline surreal experience, calling over a cab to take them to Kady’s apartment with Eliot, like something too normal for people like them.

With anyone else, Quentin would have worried about how to fill the silence during the ride. It’s easy with Eliot; they don’t need to talk, but if they wanted to, they’d never run out of words.

(Eliot’s knee touches his, and Quentin almost stops breathing, so. Yeah. Definitely not over him.)

Eliot insists on paying for the cab ride when they reach the apartment, and Quentin doesn’t want to make a scene in front of the cab driver, so he reluctantly relents. Eliot makes the most ridiculously pleased, smug look.

When they come in, Eliot calls out, “Hello?” and shuts the door behind them with the heel of his boot.

“Just us, I guess,” Quentin says, shrugging one shoulder and peering around for any of sight of Alice or Kady. Or both, since they’re. Together? Or something.

Quentin makes his way to his bedroom with Eliot lagging behind, and grabs some of his clothes from the closet. He’s about to turn around, when he remembers he should probably get a bag. Eliot passes him one silently. Quentin chances a glance behind him at Eliot, who is leaning against the wall in a debonair, lazy way. It’s not like it’s that funny, so Quentin doesn’t know why he’s having to fight down a smile. It’s just so like Eliot.

This is what gives him the courage to say something: Eliot with his head tilted back and his jawline, looking like all he needs is a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

“Done?” Eliot says. He lifts himself away from the wall and starts walking towards the door.

“Uh, yeah, just,” Quentin says, doing his best to follow Eliot’s long stride. He touches Eliot’s sleeve lightly. Steels himself. “What you said about pathetic excuses. To Margo. What did you mean by that?”

“What?” says Eliot, turning around. Then, “Oh. You know what I meant by that.”

“I don’t. Actually.”

“Oh.” Eliot sounds genuinely puzzled. “I’ve made a lot of pathetic excuses when it comes to you, Q.”

Quentin opens his mouth and nothing comes out. The distance between them feels like a hundred miles. The distance between them feels like nothing. And Quentin is thinking: third time’s the charm. One more shot. He’s pushed away that bottom-deep fear of rejection so many times already; what’s one more? And for Eliot – for Eliot, with his conspiring glance at Quentin and his exposed collarbone, and his mean tendencies and his kind ones. It’s suddenly so, bafflingly obvious, that for Eliot he would conquer that fear a million times.

“Q?” Eliot says.

“You are the _most_ – ” Quentin says incoherently, making an aborted motion with his hands.

“The most?” Eliot asks, amused, taking a step closer.

“Yes!” Quentin says, frustrated. “The most.”

“Wanna tell me what it is you’re trying to ask?” Eliot says.

“You still – ” Quentin says, and Eliot’s look softens.

“Still,” he says, “and forever.”

Oh.

And Eliot closes the distance between them, takes Quentin’s face into his hands, and kisses him.

Kissing Eliot is something Quentin knows deep down to his bones. He kisses Eliot back immediately without pausing to consider anything. Muscle memory. Eliot’s hand is on his neck, pulling him closer, closer closer. Quentin backs up, falls onto his bed, Eliot falling along with him, and feels Eliot smile. He finds Eliot’s hand and intertwines their fingers and never wants to let go; he sits up, touches Eliot’s face. He stops thinking, about whether Eliot really means this, about whether his breath smells okay, about the cab driver who has definitely driven off by now. Then Quentin is truly, genuinely in Eliot Waugh’s lap and making out with him, for the second time, though if you count alternate timelines, for what must be the thousandth. The bed creaks alarmingly and Eliot breaks free to make a face. Quentin laughs and Eliot brushes aside his hair and he’s never felt more like he belongs in his whole life. As far as kisses go, it’s their best in this timeline, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s Eliot.

“Q,” Eliot says, this smile on his face like the ones he usually tries to hide away. His hair is a mess and his mouth is swollen. _I did that_ , thinks Quentin wonderingly.

“El,” Quentin returns, a goofy, embarrassing smile on his own face.

“Let’s talk about this,” Eliot says, instead of _kiss me_ _again._ He really knows how to kill the mood. Quentin shuffles off of his lap. Eliot keeps going. “Do you feel – the same as me?”

“I was going to make a really romantic declaration, actually,” Quentin says, “but you had to steal my thunder, I guess.”

“Were you really?” Eliot says, tucking a strand of Quentin’s hair away from his face. “I’m sorry, then.” More seriously, he says, “And I’m sorry, for how I was a total dick.”

Quentin frowns. “You were not a total dick. I get why you said what you said. I don’t blame you.”

Eliot traces the outline of Quentin’s lips with his fingers. Quentin’s heart flutters. “I guess. Relationships have always ended in a really shitty way, for me. I thought being your friend was more important.”

“I’m sorry,” Quentin says.

Eliot smiles crookedly, pressing a finger next to Quentin’s mouth where a dimple would be if he had one. “What are you sorry for?”

“Just – that you’ve never had a good relationship,” Quentin says.

“Do you think I have one now?” Eliot says, his mouth tilting up at one side. He looks hopeful, Quentin thinks, and feels warm all over.

He brings Eliot’s hand on his cheek to his mouth, and kisses it. “If you want one.”

Eliot says, a million stars in his eyes, “Of course I do.”

“And it took me a while, too,” Quentin adds. “So I guess we’re even. As long as you don’t say I’m not – ”

“Sorry,” Eliot says. “I know you’re bisexual. I didn’t mean – ”

“It’s okay,” Quentin tells him. “It was just hard, for me to trust that you actually, you know, wanted to be together, after – ”

The corners of Eliot’s mouth turn down. “That’s, um. How I felt too,” he says quietly.

“Well I love you, so,” Quentin says honestly.

Eliot swallows. He leans in to kiss Quentin once, gently, says, “I love you too. But you know – it won’t be like the mosaic.”

Quentin shrugs. “Maybe it’ll be worse, maybe it’ll be better. Who the fuck knows?”

Eliot laughs and tugs him forward and kisses him. For this, Eliot in his arms, Quentin would step on broken glass and go through fire and walk more than a hundred miles.

────────────────────

“You were gone forever,” Margo says suspiciously once they’re back. She’d been lounging in her throne, and stepped off gracefully when she’d seen them, with a look of murder on her face. “You fuck muppets made me admit my feelings and then just left.”

“Sorry,” Quentin says, and knows he’s smiling.

“Did it go well?” Eliot asks, making a valiant effort to hide his own smile.

“Oh my God, you finally fucked,” says Margo. “I need to find Julia right now – ”

Quentin stammers, “I – what – we did not – Julia –

“We totally did,” Eliot acknowledges, beaming, “but why do you need to find Julia – ”

“We made a bet,” Margo says dismissively, “after the fiasco in Vegas, about when you would finally snap and make your torrid love affair official.”

Quentin has a soft spot for the fiasco in Vegas, actually, but right now – “A _bet_?” he sputters.

“Julia bet on you, egg muffin,” Margo says to him. “She thought it would take you the whole two weeks and then you would be the one to make a move. Meanwhile, _I_ bet on El.” She turns to Eliot with a silly smile that makes Quentin feel warm all over again. “That he would make a move within the first week. Was I right, or was I right?”

“You were right,” Eliot confirms, pulling her closer and spinning her around.

“I knew you would come through,” Margo says, giggling. Then she fixes Quentin with a terrifying glare. “I swear to God, Coldwater, if you hurt him I will fucking destroy you. And that’s a promise.”

“I’ll do my best,” Quentin says, avoiding her scary gaze. “That’s a promise.”

“Wait, how did it go with Fen?” Eliot says.

Margo ducks her head down. Margo and bashful do not mix, and yet. “It wasn’t a total disaster,” she says. “We’re going to Disneyland after the honeymoon.”

“Honeymoon?” Quentin says at the same time that Eliot says, “Disneyland?”

“Fen is obsessed with Disney,” Margo says. “Now I’m gonna find Julia, cause I won, bitches. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. And don’t forget about my _wedding_!” she calls over her shoulder, while walking away.

It’s just Quentin and Eliot then, alone in the throne room.

Eliot slings an arm around Quentin’s shoulder and brings him closer. “I kind of forgot we were married. And got cast with a binding spell for engaged couples.”

“We do take things out of order a lot,” Quentin says, grinning.

“We’re definitely getting better rings, though,” Eliot says, looking down at his hand and making a face.

Quentin turns to look at him, heart pounding. “You want – to stay married?”

Eliot swallows. “Well – if you want to? Though eventually we would have to have a proper wedding or Margo would _kill_ me – ”

“Eliot Waugh,” Quentin says, finding Eliot’s hand and taking hold of it, “are you proposing to me?”

Eliot’s eyes go wide. “No, wait – this isn’t a proper proposal – forget I ever said anything – ”

“And now,” Quentin says, a ridiculous smile breaking out on his face, “are you taking back your proposal because it’s not romantic enough?”

Eliot huffs. “You’re – ”

“I'm what?” Quentin says, and kisses him before he can answer. And kisses him again, and again.

Quentin may never stop kissing him actually. But somehow, with Eliot’s arm still around him and Eliot’s hand in his, he doesn’t think Eliot has a problem with that.

────────────────────

_you saved my life_

_i’ll save yours too_

_i’m still the one that’s in love with you_

 

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr at bisexualhaz! comments and kudos are lovely <3


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